Page 26 of Her Lion of a Duke (Dukes & Beasts #3)

Cecilia could scarcely breathe.

She paced her room, knowing that it was too late. It did not matter that she had decided to tell Leonard the truth, for he would not believe her.

If he knew the truth, there would be no excuse for it. He would not want to hear it.

Even so, she had no choice. Whether she had done wrong or not, Leonard was her husband, and she had to trust that he would try to understand.

With a deep breath, she left her room, searching for him.

She found him in the hallway, a bundle in hand.

“Leonard,” she said quickly, “can we—”

“We can discuss this in the study or here. The choice is yours.”

Cecilia said nothing further, walking toward his study. He followed behind silently, and she wished that she could read his face. There had been nothing; no anger, no betrayal, no hurt. She did not have the first idea of what he was thinking, and it was that uncertainty that made her uneasy.

They remained silent when they entered the study. Cecilia wanted to take a seat, but he had not suggested that she do so. They were standing on opposite ends of the room, Leonard looking directly at her while she averted her gaze.

“I can explain,” she began.

“I expect you to do so now,” he said quietly. “I believe that you have kept this from me long enough, do you not?”

“Leonard, you must understand that I never had any intention of hurting you. What I wrote—”

“So you admit it,” he interrupted. “You wrote those essays. You are Felix Gray.”

“I am, indeed,” she admitted. “I hope that, knowing me, you would hear his words—my words—differently. You know that I’d never want to hurt you.”

He leaned against his desk. “As it stands, I do not know what to think. I wanted to believe that all of this had been a terrible mistake. I hoped that you would have a reasonable explanation, so I could scold Mrs. Herrington for looking through your affairs and then forget about the matter altogether.”

“She searched my things?” she gasped.

“With good reason, it would seem, so you shall refrain from passing judgment on her. You can be as angry as you like, Cecilia, but you have no one to blame but yourself. Nobody forced you to write those things, to trigger the rumors. You made that decision, and the consequences are yours to face.”

“Is that what you think?” She let out a shallow laugh.

“Do you think that I would have done all of this if there was any other way? Truly, you will never understand what it is like to be a lady. We have nothing. I had nothing —no titles, wealth, or power of my own. My entire life hinged on the men in it and how they were perceived. If I wanted anything for myself, I had to become a man.”

He looked at her askance, not answering.

Cecilia sighed and sat in a chair.

“It was not something that happened all at once,” she continued. “I only wrote about gossip for the first while, and I relished it. I could say anything I wanted without being shunned. Felix Gray was the writer, after all, and as people agreed with him, I found it easier to continue.”

“But you have always spoken your mind. You did not need to—”

“But I did. You saw the way people thought of me. All I ever did was turn gentlemen away, but because of how I did it, it made me unapproachable. Could you imagine what would have happened if I said what I really thought? They would have called me a madwoman for believing that women should be allowed to vote, and sent me to Bedlam.”

“That does not mean that you had to attack me so publicly.”

“I was not attacking you! Do you truly think that you have always been so important to me that I would write with such anger? No. I cared about inheritance because it is something that I will never receive. It infuriates me that gentlemen are given it because they are the sensible sex, and yet you all murder each other for it. That is the irony that I spoke of. I never would have accused you of murder, and you know it.”

Leonard gaped at her. While she hated to see him that way, she was pleased that he was showing emotion at last.

“And what is so sensible about pretending to be someone else?”

“I do not know, Leonard. You could tell me that yourself, since you have been doing the same thing.”

“I have not.”

“No? Then tell me where your reputation for being a careless merrymaker comes from. You took that from Henry, used it to hide the fact that you were hurting, and hoped that nobody said a word about it. It has worked until now, but it ends here. If you are going to chastise me for hiding behind a pen name, remember that you are no better.”

“Do not turn this one on me!” Leonard snapped, slamming his fist on his desk. “I am not the one who has brought shame on this household. If you were discovered, we would be ruined.”

“And nobody will discover the truth. The only reason you did it is that my belongings were searched. I covered my tracks well—not that you care.”

“I do.”

“No, you do not. You only care that I wounded your pride. Had I never discussed such a sensitive topic, you never would have cared who I was, and I would have been some obscure writer. But you read something that you did not agree with, and you let it drive you—” She broke off.

She was angry and defensive, but she did not wish to call him insane or anything of the sort. Despite how he saw her at that moment, she had no intention of being cruel.

“I care about this because you are my wife,” he said in a low voice. “I was looking for Felix Gray for my own sake, yes, and to avenge myself and Henry, but that was not all. I wanted to prove that no one dares to hurt the Pridefields, including you. I did this for us.”

Cecilia took a deep breath, not wanting things to get worse than they already were. She had planned to apologize profusely, but in the moment, she was unable to.

Though she was not proud of hurting her husband, she could not pretend not to be proud of everything she had achieved. She had gained popularity with nothing and no one behind her, as an anonymous man nobody had heard of. She had done it by herself.

There was something to admire about that, whether Leonard agreed or not.

“I will not pretend that my motives were not selfish,” she relented.

“I first wrote before my debut, for I knew that there would be questions if a lady like me debuted and a mysterious writer appeared at the same time. I wanted power, Leonard, and I wanted control. I did not wish to control the ton, so to speak, but I wanted some control over my life.”

“You achieved that.”

“But it was more than that. I knew even then that I would not find a husband. Gentlemen do not want to marry ladies like me, which meant that I would be relegated to the shelf. I was more than happy with that, but I refused to be a burden to my family. If I wanted to be myself, I needed some sort of insurance. A safety net, so to speak. That was what the money was for.”

“And then you married a duke.”

“And then I married a duke.”

They sat quietly for a moment, Cecilia hoping that he believed her. She had not told a single lie, but she knew that it was not what he wanted to hear.

He had been hoping that it had all been a terrible mistake and that she had been innocent all along. She wished that were the case, but she could not change what had happened, and the more she thought about her accomplishments, the less she wanted to change them.

“What happens now?” she asked quietly.

“That entirely depends on what you think about leaving Felix Gray behind.”

“I cannot. I wanted to, believe me, but that is my life’s work. I cannot just give it up. I thought you would know that.”

“Then the matter is settled. If you cannot do this for our marriage, then I wonder what sort of marriage we have.”

“An arrangement,” she reminded him. “I will remind you that, had you told me of your investigation sooner, I would have told you the truth before this went too far. We did not have to marry, you know.”

“How many things should I have asked you beforehand? How could I have possibly known to ask you?”

“The same way you knew not to tell me about it,” she replied. “All you had to do was ask, but you did not. You kept something from me, as did I. We have both had our secrets, and yet you are willing to destroy our marriage because of mine.”

“You are doing it again! You are acting as though we made the same mistakes, but they could not be more different. I have visions, but they do not affect you. They are something for me to handle on my own, as I always have.”

“And my work is the same.”

“Was it only work?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Of course it was. I do not know what you are accusing me of, but I refuse to be spoken to this way.”

He gave her a knowing look, and she wondered what he knew that he had not yet told her.

“So, if I were to tell you that I was the one who discarded my brother’s belongings, you would not think anything of it?”

Cecilia immediately realized what he was referring to. She bristled, the hairs on her arm standing on end.

“You saw the letters,” she whispered.

“Indeed, I did. Would you care to tell me why you were corresponding with my brother?”

“Did I not have the right to?”

“You were my friend. Henry could have anyone he wanted, and you know that what I appreciated about you was that you liked me more.”

“Writing to him does not change that! I always liked you more than him.”

“Then why did you write to him in secret? I never opened the letters because I had not thought anything of them at the time, but now I am remembering that moment and wondering just what the two of you were discussing when you thought that I would never know.”

“You will not believe me, but it was nothing.”

“You are right. I do not believe you.”

“I can tell you more if you wish, but it is of no interest to you.”

“It most certainly is. My wife sending letters to my brother without either of them telling me is of great interest to me.”

“I was not your wife. I was Felix Gray.”

“I will not hear that.”

“But it is true. I never spoke to Henry as Cecilia, but I will not pretend that he did not vex me. He acted as though he were the most incredible man, when it was only because of his title that anyone thought anything of him. What you saw was a dispute between the two of us, written shortly before he died. I was not corresponding with him or anything of the sort. I wrote to him to warn him that if he continued as he was, he would find himself in danger.”

“A threat?”

“A warning. It was only a matter of time before he said the wrong thing to the wrong person, as was proven. I wanted to make sure that nothing bad happened to him, but he did not want to listen. I told him not to act the way he did, that he was not above anyone else, but he always thought that he was right. He believed in his actions until the day he died.”

“It was none of your business.”

“He was the brother of my friend. Not only that, but he was supposed to take a wife one day. I was not going to let him find a lady and mistreat her simply because he thought he could. You may not be willing to admit it, but you would have wanted the very same thing.”

“Wanting and doing are two very different things.”

“Alright, you wanted it, and I did it. It is no fault of mine that I take what I want, while you do not. You only have yourself to blame for your life, as it is a reflection of the choices you made. You may want me to apologize, but I cannot. I cannot honestly tell you that I am sorry for what happened, because I am proud of myself for it.”

“How could you possibly be proud?” he snapped.

Cecilia shook her head, walking to the door. There was no reasoning with him, not when she herself was growing frustrated. She only wanted him to listen, but he was refusing.

She could not expect him to understand, even if she wished that he would. She turned back to him, standing tall and jutting her chin so that he would not see the hurt she felt.

“You are not angry with me, but with yourself, because you were given every opportunity to make something of yourself, and all you did was envy your brother. I was given less, and I did more. I will not apologize for making you feel small, nor will I make myself fail so that you can be comfortable.”

“Then what do we do?” he asked.

“The choice is yours. You are the man, after all. You want me to give up what power I have, leaving you with the responsibility, so what happens now is for you to decide.”

He did not reply, and so she left the room with a sigh.

She knew what she had to do.